1. It removes the most sensitive parts of the penis (Ridged band and often it also removes Frenulum).
2. The glans (penile head) is normally an internal organ protected by the moist mucosal tissue of the prepuce (foreskin). Without the foreskin, the glans is exposed to the outer environment (air, soap, clothing, sun, etc.). The glans dries out and develops several extra layers of skin (keratinization). Besides removing the densely nerve-laden foreskin, circumcision removes 50% of the penile shaft skin and associated nerve endings. The exposed glans then keratinizes, causing further loss of sensation.
Imagine how different female sexual response would be if the clitoral hood (female foreskin) was removed. Exposure of the clitoris to the constant effects of the outer environment would approximate the effects of male circumcision.

Please take a look at a recent sensitivity study published in the BJU International (British Journal of Urology) in April 2007.This study was the first time that the intact and circumcised penis were thoroughly, systematically and scientifically tested for sensitivity. The testing method was monofilament testing, the same method used in assessing peripheral neuropathy, such as lack of feeling in the feet of diabetics. The resulting measurements of sensitivity are quantifiable and reproducible. The study was submitted for peer review before being approved for publication.

The study's objective: to map the fine-touch pressure thresholds of the adult penis in circumcised and uncircumcised men, and to compare the two populations.

The conclusion, from the abstract: The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.
Full text of the study (pdf), http://www.icgi.org/touch-test/touch-test-article.pdf
Graphs illustrating the comparison findings http://www.icgi.org/touch-test/

3. Moisturizing the glans is another important function of foreskin. Once removed, the skin of glans gets dry which most of the time leads to inability to have sex/masturbation without an artificial lubricant. On the other hand intact men do not need it at all. Foreskin slides up and down the shaft of the penis providing an easy and smooth penetration, lubrication and additional pleasure for both partners.

4. The pain during circumcision is truly agonizing.
Do you know how they circumcise newborns? First, because the foreskin is attached to the glans exactly like the fingernail is attached to the finger, they have to rip open those adhesions. They force a blunt probe under the foreskin and run it all around. Think about how that would feel under your fingernails and add on it that foreskin is the most sensitive part of the body. Then they slice open the foreskin and peel it away from the glans. Then they put a clamp on and crush the foreskin to halt the worst of the bleeding. Then they take a scalpel and slice the foreskin off. Oh, and by the way, did you know that over 85% of neonatal circumcisions in the US are still being preformed without any/adequate anesthesia?
If one wants to put their baby through this nightmare, they at least must have guts to see how the procedure is being done. As you can see on this video, the doctor claims that he uses anesthesia…well, make sure your speakers are on! http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...27632617&hl=en

There has been another study that was comparing pain sensitivity in newborn vs. adults. The results were quite shocking! Newborn indeed don't feel pain the way adults do. They feel it 1. more intense; 2. on a larger area and 3. for a longer period of time!

Lucky babies would pass out being unable to coop with such intense pain; not lucky ones will not and will go through the whole agony all the way.

There has been also a study that proved that intact boys and girls have higher thresholds of pain than circumcised boys. It was published in the Lancet (British medical journal) in 1997.

While permanent psychological impact of circumcision is still mostly unknown, it's logical to assume that just like any extremely painful and traumatic event—even if forgotten—it can lead to a permanent emotional/psychological scar/damage.

Even a perfectly performed circumcision does not guarantee that a person will not have more serious (beyond the mentioned above) problems in his future sexual life. Such problems as, for example, too tight (sometimes even painful) erections can be due to removal of too much foreskin and whatever left over just not enough to accommodate a normal erection are much more common than many people think since it's nearly impossible to know for sure how much is "too much" until the penis reaches its full-grown size. Removal of too much foreskin can also lead to a shaft of the penis being hairy (it pulls skin from above to more or less accommodate an erection).

Doctors Opposing Circumcision warns (23 October, 2005) that the risk of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is now too great to allow non-medically indicated circumcision to continue: ... The advent of MRSA in epidemic proportions increases risks associated with male neonatal circumcision beyond those previously contemplated and further increases the desirability of the non-circumcision option. MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant varieties of SA, such as vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA), increase risk, including death, to newborn circumcised boys. In view of this increased risk, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists should review their policy (2002) of offering elective medically unnecessary non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision at parental request.
... Medical practitioners must consider the epidemic status of MRSA and exercise their independent judgment regarding the performance of non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision. There is an ethical duty to not perform scientifically invalid medical treatment, especially when it puts the patient at risk. Doctors must act in the best interests of their child-patients regardless of parental requests. Doctors may conscientiously object to the performance of non-therapeutic circumcision of children.
Complete text: http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcisi.../DOC/mrsa.html

Penn and Teller video called "Circumcision Bull****". This video is funny and therefore, takes a lot of tension off the subject while saying what needs to be said. It also explains and SHOWS non-surgical foreskin restoration. I highly recommend to take a look at this video.
Yahoo Video: http://...com/23kcyc
Google Video: http://...com/2hhud3

Outside of Israel, the U.S. is the 2nd highest circumcising country in the world and after Africa, has the 2nd highest infection rate. Plus the fact that more than 80% of the world's men are "uncircumcised" and countries in Europe have an extremely low HIV+ rate.
Important to mention that circumcision scars may cause cancer:

As you can see, nature designed a man's body to be just as perfect as it can! And why would anyone want to rip off their child from all these benefits of having a whole perfectly functioning body remains a big mystery for me.

Also few most common reasons for circumcision just drive me absolutely nuts! One is "he won't remember it". Would that be ok if someone, let's say, rape a woman and then injected her with a drug which would erase this event from her memory. Would this kind of rape be ok just because she doesn't remember it?
Or would that be ok to actually rape an infant (s/he won't remember it anyway, right?!).

Second is "Looking like a daddy down there". Hmmm…makes perfect sense, doesn't it?! With this logic I sure feel very sorry for a kid whose daddy got his leg or arm amputated…

Oh, yes, the locker room argument is a "good" one as well! I like what one guy said: "Dude let's get it straight, you are laughing at me because you got a part of your **** got cut off?!.."

It's just doesn't make any sense! It sounds more like some poor excuses that people make up to feel better about something that they feel in their heart (and their instinct) is wrong.

Some women would leave the decision up to their husband because he has a penis. Well, maybe he does have a penis, but she is the one who has foreskin and therefore, is able to appreciate it. When fetus develops in uterus, the very same tissue that becomes foreskin in boys, becomes clitoral hood in girls.
Same tissue that both in boys and girls serves the same purpose: protection and sexual pleasure. That is why amputating foreskin in boys is equal to amputating clitoral hood in girls; another words, female genital mutilation (FGM) is the same thing as male genital mutilation (MGM), 'nicely' called circumcision.
Also unlike circumcised males, women have intact genitalia, and therefore, they are the ones to experience sexual pleasure the way it was meant to be.

This is a very interesting movie (contains NO violence) about female genital mutilation. As you can see, they do it to their girls because it was done to them, so there must be nothing wrong with it. Also as you can see, the women think that there is nothing wrong with them and that female circumcision is TOTALLY NORMAL. And of course, just like any mutilation, it's surrounded by myths and misconception to keep it going. The most common myths about FGM include: intact vagina isn't healthy, dirty, disgusting and that circumcision is necessary in order to have kids. http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/3...fe+and+Leisure

As late as the 1970's medical books were claiming that desensitizing the boy was good medicine as well as good morality. The idea of that, touted openly by medical scholarship with notable pride, was carefully tucked away when the sexual revolution permitted sexual pleasure.
Today male circumcision is surrounded by a lot of myths and misconceptions to keep it going. Most those myths are about intact babies/boys' penises care. Some would say that it's very hard to take care of them, that circumcised penises are somehow cleaner, healthier and things like that.
Well, sounds really good if not for the fact that these are the most common misconceptions. In infants and young boys foreskin is fused to the glans with the same tissue like our fingernails fused to our finger-beds (during circumcision it feels kind of like ripping off your nail from nail-pads just much more intense since it's the most sensitive part of the body; it has by far more blood vessels and nerve endings than any other part of the body).

At some stage (it can be anywhere between 2-18 years of age) the tissue naturally breaks down and foreskin separates from the glans, becoming retractable. Most boys will become retractable by the age of 8. Before a boy is retractable, NO ONE should EVER mess with the foreskin except for the boy himself (the owner of the penis). It should NEVER be pulled back by anyone else. It is absolutely harmful to forcibly retract foreskin and clean underneath. It is also absolutely unnecessary. It's kind of like ripping off you're a nail to clean the nail-bed.
Foreskin is fused to the glans protecting them and the only thing which can be in there is smegma (which is a natural discharge, full of antibodies; girls, by the way, produce by FAR more smegma than boys do and we never consider their vagina to be dirty because of that). So, the proper care for an intact penis of young boys is just to wipe/wash it from outside (and from outside ONLY) as if it were a finger and this is all there is to it. Period. Never retract. Retraction is what may cause infections, permanent nerve damage, scar tissue growth (which may lead to true phimosis) and is extremely painful.
When boys are fully retractable (rarely before 5 years of age) it's enough to just to tell them to pull the foreskin back during bath and that will be enough. Before puberty (usually about 14-16 years of age) the glans don't even need to be washed with soap. After that age it will take a boy just a couple of seconds to pull the foreskin back, soap it and rinse it with water. No matter how you look at it, keeping girls genitals clean are so much more harder, and yet no one suggests to cut her labia off in order to get rid of smegma or to make it "cleaner". Just think how ridicules this whole thing sounds!

Parents should be wary of anyone who tries to retract their child's foreskin, and especially wary of anyone who wants to cut it off. Human foreskins are in great demand for any number of commercial enterprises, and the marketing of purloined baby foreskins is a multimillion-dollar-a-year industry http://www.foreskin.org/f4sale.htm

If an adult wants to get circumcised, it's definitely his body and therefore, his choice. There are benefits of being circumcised as an adult vs. as an infant.- adequete pain relieve during and after procedure (also keep in mind that adults don't pee and poop on the raw wound from circimcision the way babies do);
- significantly less chance of taking too much skin since the penis is ful grown size and no need to 'guesstimate';
- prosess of keratinization and partual loss of sensitivity will be much less due to glans being protected by the foreskin all the years preor circumcision;
- his body, his choice! not being ripped off from the basic right of genital integrity and the right to choose whether to preform this cosmetic sergery on the body or not. No one should ever have a right to alter genitals of another person! Kids are NOT a parent's property!

More great links:

Robert Redford's new movie Lions For Lambs is sponsoring this contest where you post a 90 second YouTube video about what you really believe in.

Just Like Daddy video

While this video is for artificial foreskin (and I really have mixed feelings about the product) this video is AWESOME as far as showing the process of keratinization and loss of sensitivity by using computer graphic, explaining the process in a very powerful and easy-to-understand way. To view the video, please click on the link and then go to "View The SenSlip Video" http://www.senslip.com/Photo_of_the_SenSlip_fitted.php .

This website shows very clear (it explains AND also it shows very graphic videos) about how sex with circumcised penis is different than with an intact one. (there are ALOT of videos almost on every page that explains everything in very powerful and easy way).

The Nurses of St. Vincent: Saying "No" to Circumcision (short version)

RISKS AND COMPLICATIONS
Complications of circumcisions; this directory contains articles about the complications, risks, adverse effects, and disadvantages of circumcision and their treatments:http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/

FDA received 105 reports of injuries involving circumcision clamps between July 1996 and January 20001. These have included laceration, hemorrhage, penile amputation, and urethral damage.http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/safety/circumcision.html (clamping methods)

Jesus was under the old law. He sacrificed so that we would no longer have to do it. We have baptism in place of circ.

When Jesus died on the cross to save us, he abolished the old laws and started a new. He did away with circumcision and instead we have baptism (Colossians 2:8-12)

1 Corinthians 7:18-19
"Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called, he should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, keeping G-d's commands is what counts."

Galations
2: Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
3: I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law.
4: You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
5: For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.
6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.

Galatians 6:12-16 ...It is those who are trying to compel you to have yourselves circumcised, only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those having themselves circumcised observe the law themselves; they only want you to be circumcised so that they may boast of your flesh...

Romans 2:25-29 Circumcision , to be sure, has value if you observe the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision....One is not a Jew outwardly. True circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter; his praise is not from human beings but from G-d

Philippians 3:2-3 ...Beware of the mutiliation! For we are the circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of G-d...
(Thanks Bonzai!)

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In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus spoke at The Feast of Tabernacles and spoke against circumcision. He said "This is not the doctorine of he who sent me . . . it is of the fathers. What it appears Jesus was talking about is that it appears circumcision was not a covenant between God and Abraham. The early writings of The Old Testament were kept in The Temple that burned about 800BC -500BC. However, some remnants of the original writings survive today and one of those remnants is the part about The Covenant of Circumcision and those remnants contain no mention of circumcision. It appears that Jesus was aware of this and was saying that God didn't command circumcision but that actually it was included when the original writings were re-constructed from the remnants and memory.

This sounds about right. It is well established that the priests of Egypt practiced circumcision thousands of years before the time of Abraham. The priests were the elite of that society and it appears that the early Jews adopted circumcision in emulation of the powerful and influential Egyptian priests much like young people have adopted tattoos in emulation of popular music groups.
(Thanks Frank!)

There are a lot of links here...could someone help narrow down for me any links that may talk specifically about a delayed vaccination schedule and what ingredients should NOT be in a vaccine given to your child?

We won't go the non-vaxing route, but are strongly considering going the delayed vaxing route with baby #3 and for future vaxes with our kiddos now. We will have our 12 month visit in a few months and so I am researching that specifically right now...
Thanks!

There are a lot of links here...could someone help narrow down for me any links that may talk specifically about a delayed vaccination schedule and what ingredients should NOT be in a vaccine given to your child?

We won't go the non-vaxing route, but are strongly considering going the delayed vaxing route with baby #3 and for future vaxes with our kiddos now. We will have our 12 month visit in a few months and so I am researching that specifically right now...
Thanks!

i think your best bet would be to get the sears vaccine book. i think it has a delayed/selective schedule in there, as well as tons of info about all the vaxes and diseases.

There are a lot of links here...could someone help narrow down for me any links that may talk specifically about a delayed vaccination schedule and what ingredients should NOT be in a vaccine given to your child?

We won't go the non-vaxing route, but are strongly considering going the delayed vaxing route with baby #3 and for future vaxes with our kiddos now. We will have our 12 month visit in a few months and so I am researching that specifically right now...
Thanks!

I know that some people on here dont like circ at all but there are a few people on here that do it for religious reasons. There is a diffrence between what they did according to the Bible and how they do it today. I just thought I would post for information purposes.

Gluten/Dairy Free, breastfeedin', shared sleepin' unschoolin' Mama to two boys with perfect junk Easton( 4/27/05 SPD Hypo and Aspergers) and Junah( 2/18/08 born at home in the tub!)Check out the blog link above, daily GFCF meals, menu's and shopping lists!! Making GFCF fun, easy, and not like cardboard!